Caution!!! Rant Alert - Reader Beware

 GUARDIANS

Didn't actually get a chance to watch any of this game live...yet.  But my general thought from afar is what I have said already: Some games you win.  Some games you lose.  Some seasons you win.  Some seasons you lose. This team has enough talent to make the playoffs but if the FO doesn't help the manager by giving him good players, if the manager doesn't manage the players well, if the support staff (yes, I am talking to the guy responsible for determining the replay challenges as it is getting really embarassing) don't do their job and if the players take turns screwing up during the season (including Naylor getting hurt stealing 3rd when it wasn't really a smart move at the time), it is going to be a long year.

Tonight was just another example of all this coming to fruition.  Look, the way we get back into this thing, given that Minnesota has played a much stronger schedule than us so far is to beat them head-to-head.  When the game goes south like it did tonight, you have blown a golden opportunity to make up ground.  You either do or you don't and tonight enough us them didn't that we lost the game.    So now we need to win 3 to win this series.  Didn't have to be that way but now it is.  We either will or won't and that, if things don't change, will be the epitaph of this season: "They could have but they didn't"

MINOR LEAGUES

I have watched enough minor league baseball this year to pose this question:

WTF are our minor league managers doing with all this middle of the inning ptching changes?

Now, at first I thought it was because the best way, under the new rules, to extend a game, is to do intra-inning pitching changes.  I just thought that the ownership came to the managers and said, "Look, we need to sell more beer and hotdogs to make a profit and so you guys are just going to have to find a way to make the games longer"

But I don't think that is it.  Unfortunately, I can't make heads or tails of it so I need some help from all of you.  Can someone please explain these things to me?:

• Morris is scheduled to go 45 pitches or 3 innings, whichever comes first.  Not my words, those of the club.  He is in the 3rd inning, no one on base, and he gets the second out in the 3rd inning on his 39th pitch.  So the manager comes out of the dugout and takes him out.  Hasn't reached 45 pitches.  Hasn't finished the 3rd inning.  Why did he get taken out?  It wasn't in the plan.  He wasn't getting beat up.  He had 6 pitches left.  He clearly should have been allowed to finish the inning if he did it on the next batter.  Did someone in the dugout lose count  of the pitches he threw?  Did Cleveland call and say 'hey, we've seen enough.  Take him out we may need him over the weekend'.  I don't know.  I am confused, but not as confused as...
• Columbus was leading 8-5 and had one out to get to win the game.  Caleb Barager, a lefty, had just struck out 2 guys and Darius Hill, a lefty hitter, was coming up followed by a switch-hitter.  Instead of letting the AAAA pitcher Barager finish the game, or try to, Andy Tracy brought in Ponticellii FOR ONE OUT, FACING TWO GUYS WHO WERE GOING TO HIT LEFT HANDED AGAINST HIM.  Why?  We ended up burning Ponticelli so he won't be available tomorrow.  The game is tied up and, best case, we go to the 11th if our new reliever can clean up the mess (bases loaded, one out in the 10th) that the same Ponticelli left.
• Wednesday night, in a game Lake County was losing 10-6, the manager pulled Denholm with 2 outs in the top of the 9th to bring in Tyler Thornton.  Two outs in the 9th, no runners on base and you bring in a new pitcher, one of your better pitching prospects on that team, a guy whose prospect status is on the rise...to get one out.  He has to warm up and come in a game that was all but lost...to get one out?!?! 

I looked through recent games and found that in the last 4 games Columbus has removed a pitcher in the middle of an inning 8 out of 14 times and in the last 4 games in Akron they have removed a pitcher 9 out of 14 times.   Now once in a while I get.  Maybe a guy is on rehab and has reached his pitch count, maybe a guy is getting bombed and has to be rescued due to a long inning or general ineffectiveness that night.  I get it.  But to have 60% of your pitching changes over a 4-game period be in the middle of an inning....that doesn't seem right.    The 3 examples I have given above, none of them seems right.

WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?

Someone please explain it to me as it is maddening to be watching a game and have that game delayed, extended or lost due to an unnecessary pitching change.